A New York Times investigation published May 24, 2026, reported that senior officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator for derivatives and prediction markets, sidelined career staff who raised concerns about three firms connected to the Trump family, as the agency pulled back from crypto enforcement. The summaries below are from coverage of the Times's reporting, which relies in part on current and former employees.
Each firm needed CFTC sign-off for its prediction-market plans. Polymarket received an investment from 1789 Capital, the venture firm partly owned by Donald Trump Jr., who is also an unpaid adviser to it. Crypto.com is a business partner of Trump Media & Technology Group. And “Gemini's founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, back American Bitcoin, the crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump.” Career officials told the Times they worried Crypto.com “was not treating small bettors fairly,” that Polymarket lacked adequate fraud protections, and that Gemini Titan had not completed the required review. Then-acting chair Caroline Pham and her senior counsel, Brigitte Weyls, intervened on each, the Times reported. By Christmas two officials who had raised questions were placed on leave and put under internal investigation.
Enforcement fell off: the CFTC has announced just two cases involving digital assets in Trump's second term, compared with more than 80 during the Biden years and more than two dozen in Trump's first term, and it dropped at least five other crypto investigations. Pham left in December to join MoonPay, a crypto company with an “exclusive” prediction-market partnership with Polymarket. Weyls became general counsel of Gemini Titan in March, the company whose application she had pushed. In June and July 2026 Senate Banking Democrats asked the CFTC for records and the Government Accountability Office for a review of its staffing and enforcement.
Correction (September 25, 2026): this entry was dated June 1; the Times published May 24. It said a Gemini affiliate is tied to Eric Trump (the link is that Gemini's founders back a company Eric Trump co-founded), said Donald Trump Jr. advises Kalshi (not in any source), stated staff concerns as fact rather than as concerns, and said both officials took jobs at firms they had helped (only Weyls did; Pham joined a Polymarket partner). An opinion column that did not address the story in its available text was removed as a source.
Correction (October 29, 2026): the September 25 correction described the claim that Donald Trump Jr. advises Kalshi as “not in any source.” That was wrong: Kalshi announced on January 13, 2025 that it had named Trump Jr. a strategic adviser, CNBC reported. The claim is not restored here as part of the Times's reporting, which concerned Polymarket, Crypto.com and Gemini Titan, not Kalshi; the September 25 correction otherwise stands. For the CFTC's October 2026 lawsuit against Utah on Kalshi's behalf, see Trump Administration Sues Utah to Stop Its Gambling Case Against Kalshi, a Firm That Named Donald Trump Jr. an Adviser.